Quote Originally Posted by kitedemon View Post
I like the eco earth myself works great with extra humidity if needed you may not with a tub set up. Forget the feeding tweezers they don't hold anything well and find a pair of hemostats. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemostat
they actually work.

I am not a fan of flexwatt stuck on a tub it sags and is a bit odd also Flexwatt is a fast heating and can get very hot very quickly the hydrofarm t-stat delivers 100% power until 2 degrees over the set point and then shuts off and waits until 2 under. Not a problem with a slow heating source or a heavy enclosure but a light enclosure with fast heating source could generate rapid high temps when the unit first comes on. Especially with hydrofarms the probe is slow responding (metal tipped). This is 100 times more pronounced in cool room temps (77 and cooler).

I might suggest that either a different heat source or T-stat. There are a number of safer heat pads that are lower wattage and lower heat than flexwatt something like a ultratherm or exoterra rainforest. the ultratherms rarely produce 100º unregulated and the rainforest 110 at the max. They are lower wattage and slower to heat so they take longer to get hot and don't swing as far on the high end due to this. (ultratherms have a much better rep)

A proportional T-stat (herpstat, helix, eco zone, habistat) don't allow the heat source to ever full heat up or cool the switch them on and off rapidly (many times a second) and deliver the set temp basically all the time the source is a constant temp. The heat source is not an average temp system like on/off methods but a constant temp.
That's some great advice, I'll dump the flexwatt and look into something that heats slowly. I'm hoping amazon carries something that will work as I have a gift card there and no shipping/sales tax! I think I will def get some longer tongs, and just stick with newspaper substrate for now. A scale will also be a good idea, never thought about that!

I'm glad I posted this before I went ahead and ordered everything!